This is my first attempt making pizza dough from the Bread Bible book.  Should the dough come together when it is mixed and if it doesn’t should I add more water?
Also, after mixing the dough it needs to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.  It has gone past an hour.  At this point do I refrigerate or can I leave it at room temperature for how long it takes to double?
Thanks

Here’s a link to the blog that you may find helpful:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2006/02/pizza_praise.html

You should just make sure most of the flour is moistened.  It will form a dough, but it will look pretty rough and not at all smooth.  You will probably have the strong urge to keep mixing it—don’t, because you will have problems later when you try to shape the pizza.  I always refrigerate it overnight, but I think there are instructions in the recipe if you decide not to refrigerate it.

I measure by weight and have never encountered a problem when doing the pizza crust from the book.  What Matthew describes is correct.

The dough will seem a bit dry and crumbled.  After the overnight refrigerated rest, the dough will smooth out.

If you over mix or over knead so the dough comes together off the bowl, you will be developing the gluten too much making the dough very elastic:  it will be a bit hard to stretch it out onto your pizza pan as the elasticity will shrink it back.  But really, if this happens, no worries, all you need to do is stretch the dough in 3 or 4 takes, a little more each time until you cover you pizza pan.  Between takes, cover and rest for 10-15 minutes, this resting time relaxes the gluten.

You may want to know, that I have my family in Italy making pizza with The Bread Bible (TBB)!  The dough is rested overnight, too.  They used to make pizza from a kit that is very popular in Italy, it is a box that has pre-measured flour/yeast/salt, all you need is add water and knead and roll.  Actually, this “pizza mix” was wonderful, but after trying TBB recipe, they have converted.  I think the overnight rest made a great flavor improvement, it is a common practice to add flavor for bread baking.  Soon, I will tell them to make their own “pizza mix” as I do, by mixing everything from TBB recipe except the flour and box it, why not?

One more thing, I have proven first hand that unless you have an oven that can reach plus 600oF, you can’t get true Italian thin crispy crust pizza unless you pre-bake the crust without toppings.  I pre-bake following the instructions on TBB.  My oven doesn’t reach 600oF, but my German friends who live nearby have built a brick oven which reaches that temperature or even higher, and their crusts comes out nice without pre-baking!  But you know what?  I love pre-baking as it makes the job easier and less messy at home than doing all at once, and I am telling you this because normally I make 40 plus pizza when I make pizza at home.

Welcome to this wonderful blog.

Hector,
I just want to point out that I bake my crust at 470 with toppings and I get a nice crispy crunch. When I use my superpeel the problem of getting loaded uncooked crusts into the oven is obviated also.

thanks for sharing, I must get one super peel!